Mother attends last rites of killed scribe

Sudha Pathak, mother of Nirupama who was found murdered at her Jharkhand home last month on Sunday attended the last rites of the Delhi journalist after she was released on parole by a court, authorities said.

"Sudha Pathak was sent to her home to attend the last rites of her daughter. The chief judicial magistrate granted her permission. She will attend the last rituals for three days from Sunday," Koderma Jail Superintendent Martin Sao told IANS.

He said Sudha will go to her home in the morning and be brought back to the jail by the evening.

She was arrested May 3 on the basis of circumstantial evidences and charged with killing Nirupama.

According to family members, the last rituals of Nirupama will take place as per Hindu traditions over the next three days.

On Saturday, police filed a case of cheating, rape and abetment to suicide against Nirupama's boyfriend Priyabhanshu Ranjan. Also, their friends and colleagues were interrogated in New Delhi.

According to police, Nirupama sent 33 SMSes to Ranjan between April 19 and 28.

He has allegedly deleted all SMSes. During interrogation he denied receiving any SMS except one. He also allegedly took away the laptop and diaries from Nirupama's Delhi house when she went to Koderma.

Jharkhand Director General of Police Neyaz Ahmad has sought the investigation report from Koderma police in the next two to three days.

A police officer said the date of the suicide note has been tampered with. The actual date mentioned on the suicide note, found from Nirupama's Koderma home, was April 27 but it was changed to April 29. Police are trying to find out who did the overwriting on the suicide note.

Nirupama was found dead in her home in Jharkhand's Koderma district April 29. The postmortem report says that Nirupama was smothered to death.

According to police, three doctors who conducted the postmortem examination on Nirupama would be interrogated. Koderma police Sunday summoned the medical board members who conducted autopsy for interrogation.

"The autopsy report has confused police whether it was murder or suicide. Questions are being raised over the postmortem report as it has several loopholes," a police officer said.

According to police, the doctors did not mention the time of death. Also, they did not preserve the viscera and foetus of Nirupama. Also, the report has not mentioned about the injury marks on Nirupama's body.

Medical experts say that if someone is sought to be killed by smothering then the person would fight back and there should be injury marks on the body of the dead person.

K.P. Singh, one of the three doctors who conducted autopsy, Thursday said he did not have requisite qualification to conduct a postmortem examination and he conducted it for the first time in his life.